ekern.exe @ 100%, uTorrent

uTorrent (have tested versions 2.0.4 and 1.8.3) seems to cause ekern.exe to get stuck at 100% CPU usage. It doesn't happen instantly after starting uTorrent - at the beginning NOD32 uses minimal CPU time. But when uTorrent has run about 30 minutes ekern.exe hugs up one core (task manager shows 25% as my system is quad-core). Then after about another 15-30 minutes next core is also used by NOD32 (50% shown in task manager). When it's at 50% I can't even browse websites anymore (Firefox shows "Waiting for ..." on status bar). I haven't waited longer to see if it will also eat last two cores. It doesn't even help if I exit uTorrent or disable NOD32 after ekern.exe has gone up to 25% or 50%. Only rebooting or uninstalling NOD32 helps.

I have tried excluding uTorrent from NOD32 (Setup->Antivirus and Antispyware->Exclusions and Setup->Antivirus and Antispyware->Protocol filtering->Excluded applications). I even tried disabling Web access protection altogether.

EDIT: It seems that the problem doesn't occur when I have "Real-time file system protection" disabled (others modules, including Web access protection, are enabled). Had uTorrent running without problems for several hours while NOD32's "Real-time file system protection" was disabled. 'bout 20 minutes ago re-enabled it and now ekern.exe is already at 25%.

Any ideas? Disabling "Real-time file system protection" permanently doesn't seem like good idea

If your P2P app is pegging your CPU, check the settings or re-install and seek help from uTorrent

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Ekrn.exe (I'm afraid I mistyped it before) is eating the processor. Though I tried reinstalling (and also an older version of uTorrent), but it didn't help.

Marcos said:

If you didn't contact customer care

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Nay, I didn't. Should I?

Marcos said:

create a log from Process Monitor shortly before and while the problem occurs, upload it somewhere and post a link to it here.

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I'll try to reproduce the problem and log it with Process Monitor, but is it wise to link such logs publicly here?

I also noted (by using LockHunter) that ekrn.exe had several files locked (in use) in the uTorrent's download folder after ekrn.exe started consuming processor exceedingly. I suppose it got stuck with them as several minutes later those files were still in use by NOD32. Manually scanning those file didn't seem to cause any trouble (no getting stuck nor any alerts) and they weren't particularly large files (PDF files, 'bout 1MB or less).